BASTILE DAY
1 Maccabees, Chapter 10, Verse 8
They were struck with fear when they heard that the king had given him authority to
gather an army.
The, they, in this verse were the Hellenized
Jews who were losing their power which came from supporting Greece (King
Demetrius). At once they were afraid for their lives realizing that their power
over Jonathan was gone they decided to leave Jerusalem. Along comes Alexander
Balas who claims to be the son of Antiochus and the rightful king, he has the
backing of Rome. Jonathan plays these two opponents against each other to make
Jerusalem great again. Jonathan then accepts from Alexander permission to
become high priest which he accepts. There is just one problem; he is not a
Levi, only Levis can be priests. Here is high stakes politicking.
Bastille Day[1]
Today, July 14, is Bastille Day, the
commemoration of the revolution that brought down France’s Ancien Régime and
led to the establishment of a new order that promised to totally refashion
society. Unlike the American Revolution, which was fought to conserve rights
and maintain political order, the French Revolution destroyed the fabric of
French society. No aspect of human life was untouched. The Committee of Public
Safety – influenced by Rousseau – claimed that to convert the oppressed French
nation to democracy, “you must
entirely refashion a people whom you wish to make free, destroy its’
prejudices, alter its habits, limit its necessities, root up its vices, purify
its desires.” To achieve this end, the new rational state, whose primary
ideological plank was that the sovereignty of “the people” is unlimited,
attempted to eliminate French traditions, norms, and religious beliefs. The
revolutionary governing bodies were particularly determined to destroy every
vestige of the Roman Catholic Church because France was hailed by Rome as the
Church’s “eldest daughter” and the monarch had dedicated “our person, our
state, our crown and our subjects” to the Blessed Virgin. The Constituent
Assembly began the campaign against the Church by stating in the Declaration of
the Rights of Man, “no body or individual may exercise any authority which does
not proceed directly from the nation.” In other words the Church could no
longer have any say in public matters. The secular state would now have the
final word over every aspect of human and social life. Next, the government
abrogated the 1516 Concordat that defined France’s relationship with the Vicar
of Christ. Financial and diplomatic relations with the papacy ceased. In the
name of freedom, all monastic vows were suspended and in February 1790, legislation
was approved to suppress the monasteries and confiscate their properties. The
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 12, 1790, decreed that the
priesthood was a civil body and all bishops and priests were to be selected by
the people and paid by the state.
·
The pope was to have no say in the matter.
·
In addition, clerics had to swear an oath of
loyalty to the French Constitution. Dissidents had to resign their ministries
and many were prosecuted as criminals.
·
Lay Catholics loyal to the pope were treated as
rebels and traitors. With only four out of 135 bishops taking the oath in 1791,
the more radical Legislative Assembly ordered additional sanctions against the
Church.
·
All religious congregations were suppressed and
wearing clerical garb was forbidden.
·
Priests loyal to the papacy were automatically
guilty of “fanaticism” and sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
·
Processions were forbidden; crucifixes and
religious artifacts were stripped out of churches.
·
Government priests were granted freedom to
marry, divorce was permissible, and marriage became a civil procedure.
·
Also, education, managed for centuries by the
Church, was nationalized. To further de-Christianize France, a new civil
religion was introduced – patriotism.
·
The Gregorian calendar was eliminated and
replaced with names related to nature. To abolish Sunday worship, months were
rearranged to contain three “weeks” of ten days apiece, thus designating every
tenth day for rest.
·
Catholic holy days were replaced with national holidays
and civic days of worship. The “Cult of Great Men” (i.e., Rousseau) replaced
the veneration of saints. The use of the word “saint” was forbidden. “There
should be no more public and national worship but that of Liberty and Holy
Equality,” declared the revolutionary government.
·
Every city and village was ordered to erect an
“altar to the fatherland” and to conduct July “Federation Month” patriotic
rites.
·
The Feast of Nature was observed in August and
the Cult of Reason was celebrated at Paris’ Civic Temple, formerly the
Cathedral of Notre Dame. A female dancer was crowned as the Goddess of Reason
and performed for the assembly. In 1794, the deistic cult of the Supreme Being
replaced the atheistic adoration of reason. At the first public worship, the
self-declared high priest, Robespierre, pronounced in his homily, “the idea of
the Supreme Being and the soul’s immortality is a continuous summons to justice
and consequently social and republican.”
·
Despite all the efforts of the missionaries of
terror, the Church was not stamped out of existence. The heroism of the
thousands of martyred bishops, priests, and religious inspired millions of the
faithful and caused a spiritual renascence in France during the nineteenth
century. The notorious political rogue and excommunicated bishop of Autun, the
Prince de Talleyrand, reviewing that terrible period of persecution, conceded,
“Regardless of my own part in this affair, I readily admit that the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy . . . was perhaps the greatest political mistake of
the Assembly, quite apart from the dreadful crimes which flowed there
from.” General of the Republic, Henri Clarke, agreed. In a report to the
government in 1796, he wrote, “Our revolution, so far as religion is concerned,
has proved a complete failure.
·
France has become once more Roman Catholic, and
we may be on the point of needing the pope himself in order to enlist clerical
support for the Revolution.” The French ideologues learned, as did their
barbaric heirs in the twentieth century, that every effort to destroy the
Church and eliminate the faithful fails. As Christ Himself promised: “the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Bastille
Day-the other story[2]
Bastille
Day Facts & Quotes
·
The theme for Bastille Day in Paris for 2015 was
Paris welcomes the world
·
The French Revolution was brought about
partially due to the unequal class system found in France during the late
1700s. The Catholic clergy held the highest position, next came Louis XVI
and his court, and lastly were the general population. Without the
benefit of being born into a higher class, the general population had almost no
hope of ever bettering their station in life.
·
Louis XVI's spending at Versailles and his
financial support of the American Revolutionary War against the British, placed
France in severe economic crisis. The general population was starving
while King Louis XVI was building a great navy and continuing his lavish
lifestyle in Versailles.
·
The French flag consists of blue, white and red.
White was the color of the Monarchy and red and blue represented Paris. During
the Revolution, the white was surrounded by blue and then red.
·
A revolution can be neither made nor stopped.
The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give
it a direction by dint of victories. - Napoleon Bonaparte
Bastille
Day Top Events and Things to Do
·
Watch the Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. They
usually start around 11pm and can be viewed from the Champs de Mars and
Trocadero.
·
Attend a French military parade.
·
Visit a French national museum as most are free
to visit on Bastille Day or visit a local firehouse in France - they are open
to the public on this holiday.
·
Watch a movie or a documentary about the French
Revolution. Our picks: The French Revolution(2005), Jefferson in
Paris (1995), Marie Antoinette (2006), Danton (1983) and That
Night in Varennes (1982)
·
Go out to a French Restaurant. Many have
specials for this day.
Fitness Friday
Recognizing that God the
Father created man on Friday the 6th day I propose in this blog to
have an entry that shares on how to recreate and renew yourself in strength;
mind, soul and heart.
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